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February 2008 - Posts
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In my earlier
post I have given my guess list. My list was correct by more than 3/4th.
What happened from my list:
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FM had done nothing for Dollar hit export industry including IT
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Increase in Defence spending
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Dividend tax was tweaked
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Income tax exemptions increased by good percentages
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6th Pay commission was accepted
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Farm credits /benefits were announced
What didn't happen from my list:
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Service tax rates were not changed (Good)
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A new committee for simplification didn't happen (Good, we have had enough committees)
The points I liked about the budget:
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Promised allocation for Minimum Work / Employment schemes
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Pushing the states for more accountability on central funded projects
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Drinking water availability in all villages and in all schools in India
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Allocation of over Rs.200 Crores for Chennai's Desalination plant
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Service tax for Customized Software (though I don't like the tax, it at least put
an end to all arbitration on whether it is applicable or not)
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No change in corporate tax rate (Good)
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Like his previous 4 budgets Mr.P.Chidambaram has taken this year too considerable
efforts in listening to the public & Industry on their wish list for India Budget
2008. Like previous years this year too he will stop with listening and the budget
will be a political compulsion/election oriented one. Following are my guesses on
what he will do tomorrow:
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Some marginal concessions for Rupee/Dollar Hit export industry will be announced,
only for the worst affected like Textile, Leather & accessories
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The biggest wish of the IT Industry, the extension of STPI scheme beyond 2009 will
not be done. If mentioned, it will just say the decision is being left to the next
government
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The duties and customs will be brought down and aligned with commitments given by
the government to ASEAN and other trade pacts
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Income Tax rates will be left untouched. The minimum income level will be increased,
some more exemptions for senior citizens & women will be given
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He will certainly promise setting up a new committee to simplify direct/indirect taxes
to take advantage of the buoyant collections this year
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Service Tax will be increased by 2% (or) Educational Surcharge will be increased by
additional 1% and it will be promised for further infrastructure/power developments/oil
under recovery
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Implementation of 6th Pay commission which might give over 25% hike to government
employees salaries and benefits. Possibly removal of new hiring restrictions in selective
departments
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Increase the budget allocation for Defence especially the Nuclear & Missile programmes
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New farm oriented credit announcements will be made
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Dividend tax will be tweaked a bit to appease the stock market
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My corporate IT (Exchange Server) enforces security policy on all mobile devices that
connect to it. So my phone is locked by a PIN. When I connect the Windows Mobile Phone
(HTC S710) to PC, Vista displays a dialog box (like the one below). This dialog box
certainly has useful information that needs my attention, but I am irritated on the
fact it doesn't have a minimize/close button. Absolutely no way to get rid of the
window other than keying the PIN in the device or disconnecting the device.
I feel this to be a classic case of bad user interface design.
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Y.Gee.Mahendra's UAA has released a new tamil play (drama) called "சுதேசி ஐயர்" (Sudeshi
Iyer). The first show happened yesterday in Bharat Kalachar and today there was shows
in Rani Seethai Hall. Seeing the banner near Duraiswamy subway yesterday, I went for
the third show of the play today with my family. It was advertised as "சிரிப்போ சிரிப்பு,
புதுமையோ புதுமை”, but my expectation was limited due to previous experiences with
plays.
Fortunately, it turned out to be true, the play was certainly hilarious and enjoyable. Worth
seeing. The story was not much, a 70 year old Swadeshi type Father wants
to teach his family the illness of deteriorating value system in the materialistic
world now. He takes them in a time machine to 1945 and the family gets to experience
the world and value system in 1945, gets to see Mahatma Gandhi and they realize their
mistakes. All this is told in a very hilarious and filled with jokes. My 4-1/2 year
old son and my 75 year dad both enjoyed the play, that I guess speaks for wide audience
satisfied by the play.
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 The
first motorized vehicle I learned driving (after learning Bicycle) was my father's
Bajaj Scooter with Gear. This was a Vespa style scooter with engine on one side and
gears on the left hand steering bar. The trick to learn in riding one of these is
that you should keep only your left feet on ground whenever you are stopping as the
right feet is needed all the time near the brake (the brake is near right feet). This
should have been 15 years before and I was driving it for just few years before I
moved to other vehicles. This is one of the most dangerous two wheelers on the planet,
as even in medium speeds it is impossible to control it from skidding especially because
of the engine (and hence the weight) on one side.
So why I am writing about this here?. I became nostalgic about this today, when I
rode my Uncle's scooter (it was the same Bajaj Chetak model that my father had) for
a short distance from my home to a restaurant to have my breakfast. I was left marvelling
at how our human brain works - for almost 10 years I have never rode a geared scooter
(for that matter hardly I drive a two wheeler nowadays) and when I got on to one today
it was easy. Instantly I remembered how to operate one and I was up and running. If
only computers and software applications worked like this (human being) we all would
be better off...
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One thing I hate about buying Electronics (Computer accessories as well) and Compact
Discs (VCDs, DVDs) is the chore of cutting open the plastic packaging without hurting
your fingers or the product. I just don't understand why the manufacturers want to
put so much plastic on the covers with the idea of hurting you. If the idea is to
protect (RFID tagging) from stealing and to have a frame for hanging/displaying then
I am sure there are better ways. Ways that are environmentally friendly, more than
environment friendly to the poor consumer who paid money. This is true especially
for CDs that you buy from a Music chain (In India Music World, Landmark, etc.) where
apart from the manufacturer cover the chains put RFID in a layer, then a layer of
plastic to protect the RFID and so on., finally you end up having to cut open 3
layers before you can reach to the music. Similar pain for Electronic items,
say a Mouse/Mobile Charger, etc. where you need a steady and 200 pound fingers to
cut that thick layer of plastic before reaching to the product.
I guess the idea is to make it difficult for you to reach to the product, so that
you cannot use it. Obviously a product still in the box, won't go bad and you won't
call for support. Smart idea of electronics companies to save money especially with
their margins dwindling all the time.
The next packaging item I hate is the sharp (metal) pins used in Shirts (Menswear).
I can understand the idea is to have the shirt folds stay in place, so that the shirts
while in the shelf have a nice look. Here again you have safer ways to do it like
Paper Clips (Gem Clips). Apart from being dangerous to remove without hurting your
fingers they in some cases damage the very shirt they are meant to enhance the appearance.
Also these pins could be hazardous in countries like India where dump yards are often
visited by Cattle's looking for food and scavengers looking for reusable items that
could be sold.
Finally, the packaging item I hate the most because I have to deal with it everyday
is the Stapler Pins used in envelopes by courier companies. I am not sure whether
anywhere else in the world, courier companies stapler the routing receipt with the
envelopes they carry. Removing these Stapler Pins even by using the back of Stapler
machine is tricky and most times you end up damaging the cheque or the document that
is inside the envelope. Can't they paste it instead?.
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I was invited to do a presentation to students at my alma mater (SVCE,
Pennalur). The occasion was a day long event today organized by ECE department's
Alumni Association & IEEE Chapter. I decided against a technical topic for fear
of boring the students, instead I made a talk on "Entrepreneurship
for Engineers". Following what "George Bernard Shaw" said "I
often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation", I started by
quoting myself “There has never been a better time in Indian History
for becoming an Entrepreneur”.
I tried my best to make the session very lively and at the end when I counted only
few heads where sleeping out of nearly 100 students in the hall. And in the 90 minutes
I heard no "Boos" or "Whistles" which itself I think was an achievement
in itself. Download - Entrepreneurship
for Engineers v2.0.pdf (292.67 KB)
In the evening I presented one more session. This time it was at Vishwak for
our weekly Friday sessions organized by our team members as a forum to share knowledge
and best practices. Here again I went against a technical topic as I didn't have the
time in advance to prepare on any of the latest or upcoming topics, and if I presented
on any of the existing technologies then my team knows more than me :-) . The topic
I talked was on "Presentation
Skills" on which I have earlier posted
a detailed 7 page post here and as a way of demonstration I did the talk without
any presentation aids (No PowerPoint and no Projector).
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Read the earlier
part of this project here where I talked about the Digital Conversion of VCD/DVD
and sharing in XBox.
 After
all the Proof of Concept, I decided it was time to go full time Digital. Bought new
hardware for my house. One was a high-end desktop where I plan to do the conversions
and regular PC usage. The second was for server role, where I had two 500GB HDD Mirrored
for storing all my Digital Media files and sharing them. I then converted few dozen
of VCD and DVDs into Nero AVC (MPEG4) format with the new desktop in few days.
I tried in the server machine, first Windows Home Server but that didn't the driver
for Mirroring H/W that I had), then Windows Server 2003 but that didn't support installation
of Zune Client Software, after that thought Windows XP SP2 will be the best but that
didn't allow Zune sharing to be visible in XBOX whatever I tried. So I had to resort
to Windows Vista SP1. Installed Media Center Extension that went through smoothly
but my main requirement was to have Zune Network Sharing working so that all my Photos,
Music & Videos are available for playback at my XBOX 360. These two articles have
step by step instructions needed for a normal setup:
 I
had bought Norton 360 that contains Antivirus, Firewall and Antispyware. The firewall
configuration was pathetic in Norton 360 so I switched it off and turned to Vista's
default firewall. I installed and easily got SQUEEZEBox music sharing working. Zune
Network Sharing was a big hurdle to cross, what ever I tried the videos and photos
were not visible from XBOX. After several hours of trying I figured out the way to
make it work.
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Create a new user exclusive to run Zune Client Software, call it say "ZuneUser"
make it administrator in Vista
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Switch off User Access Control (UAC), this was the biggest problem cause
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Reset all security settings for the drive/folders where you have your media files
(Give Read/Execute for ZuneUser)
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Go to Zune Client Software, configure your monitoring folders for media
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Enable Network Sharing, give it a name and tick Music, Video & Photos
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Go to Services Applet, replace the user account for the Zune Network Sharing (ZuneNSS)
service from Network Service to ZuneUser.
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Restart the ZuneNSS service
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Give some time for monitoring job to pickup files
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Go to XBOX 360 and look for your media files and play them
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I was looking for long on how to enable Hibernation option in Vista, as the sleep
doesn't work in my laptop all the time. After spending lot of time in navigating through
the confusing menus of Vista and Windows Help, I turned to Google, got the answer
in the second search link.
Here it is:
1. Click Start, All Programs, and then right click on "Command Prompt".
2. From the context menu click on "Run as administrator".
3. If User Account Control prompts you to allow the action, click on Continue.
4. In the command prompt window, type "powercfg –h on" (without the
quotes).
5. Close the Command Prompt window.
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Does a city need so many FM Radio Stations all playing the same music?. In Chennai
there are currently 8
major FM Stations:
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All Indian Radio Rainbow
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Suryan FM (Sun TV Group)
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Radio Mirchi (Times
Group)
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Big FM (ADAG
Group)
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Aahaa FM (Kumudam Group)
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Radio One (Mid-Day)
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Hello FM (Malaimalar Group)
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Radio City
The license issued by government prohibits them (other than AIR) from broadcasting
NEWS, but that doesn't mean they can't play different music. All the above 8 channels
(again exception being AIR) play only latest Tamil Film Albums. Each of them have
few slots for other types of music but even that is miniscule compared to their overall
Tamil Film programming.
Though I don't listen to Hindi or Telugu film music, I am wondering who will cater
to those diaspora living in Chennai or for that matter Tamilians who are interested
in Hindi Music. All the channels are same, with similar sounding RJs blabbering, SMS
Polls, talk shows, etc. in between the same music collections. Why is there no niche
stations playing different genre of music - say one for old Tamil songs, Carnatic
Music, Western classical, Hindustani, Hindi Film Music and the likes.
If you have an idea why this is not happening, I am interested in reading your comments.
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I don't know whether any other country in the world (just kidding, it is not as if
I am an expert on Budgets around the world just felt good saying it) has its budget
strewn in such mystery and secrecy like the Indian Budget. In today's Globalized world
the role of a central budget has diminished over the years which certainly is good.
In my view a Central (a.k.a. Federal for those of you who are from USA) Budget should
be more of a report card recording the performance of the government spend in the
last 12 months and the outlook for next 12 months. The way Indian Budget has become
over the years and is expected to function by common people, as the platform for all
ministries and the entire governments policy announcements. This has made the Finance
Ministry the nodal point and hence the single biggest bottleneck of every government
departments functions. If you ask what is the alternative, it is to let each ministry
on a regular basis announce its plan for next 12 months after consultation with respective
industry bodies. This can be much like the way the commerce ministry does its EXIM
policy but with more teeth and power to each ministry to do its job better than what
it is today.
Anyway coming back to the topic, I read this good pictorial workflow of how the Indian
Budget process happens in LiveMint. It has some surprises like the key people
in budget preparation are locked in the basement of North Block for the last 7 days
and the only people allowed to see from outside world is the Finance Minister!. Good
Read.
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After I moved to Windows
Vista about a year back, I hardly had to worry about Firewall settings. Though
initially I found the UI of Vista Firewall Settings different and a little hard to
understand, I soon realized its power and flexibility. Most of the time I found the
firewall in Vista to automatically configure itself for many of the applications I
installed including Zune, Zune Network Sharing, XBOX Media Extender and others.
Last
week I evaluated K7
Computing Total Internet Security and found it to be the most light-weight and
fast in its class. Its Firewall interface was simple and effective with almost all
the time it popped up a dialog (user configurable) for any new application so that
I could set the access the way I wanted. Since I had no complaints with Vista Firewall,
I decided to just go with K7
Antivirus (Rs.690) alone for my laptop. Compared to Symantec Antivirus Corporate
Edition I had before in my laptop on a Vista x84, I found K7 Antivirus to be less
resource hungry and overall I found the machine to more snappier.
For my home PC, I went with Norton
360 (bought it locally in India from a dealer) after studying in their website
how Symantec have slimmed the whole product in terms of resources. I installed it
in Home Server (Windows XP 32bit with 500GB Mirrored HDD, 2GB RAM, AMD 64) and in
my Home PC (Intel Quad Core 2.4Ghz, 8GB RAM, 160 GB, 500GB HDD, Dell 20" Monitor).
I found NAV 360 to take very little resources and snappier. But I have been having
trouble with its firewall to open ports for Zune
Network Sharing and few other applications. I wished NAV 360 had a database of
known applications and their firewall settings. I found the lack of an option to backup
your firewall rules and restoring it a serious limitation. It didn't have a Zone preset
as well - meaning for every rule you have to define your local subnet and range.
In the end, I will recommend Vista Out-of-box firewall plus either K7 Antivirus or
Norton Antivirus 2008/NAV 360 AV Module alone.
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The most common question I get about Tamil Unicode / Tamil IT is how do I input Tamil
text in Windows?. Over the years my answer has varied and if you ask others
it certainly varies between individuals and their choices. There are plethora of choices
now available:
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My first in the list will be Murasu
Anjal. If you are using Windows 2000 or older this is the best software
out there. Rock Solid and supports multiple keyboard formats, has convertors for various
encoding and the paid version ships with high-quality Tamil Fonts. Unfortunately my
good friend Muthu Nedumaran hasn't updated Anjal for Windows Vista and x64 platform.
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Inbuilt IME in Windows 2000, 2003, XP & Vista. The upside to this is that OS out
of box solution and downside it supports only ISCII layout.
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Microsoft's
Indic IME 1 (v5.0) from BhashaIndia.com. The upside is that it supports multiple
keyboard styles, downside it is buggy and not works in all software.
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Keyman
software and plug-ins for Tamil. The upside is that Keyman is a very popular IME
framework that support hundreds of languages. Downside the plug-ins are made by individuals
as voluntary effort and may not be without errors.
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E-Kalappai -
This is another variation of Keyman and is widely popular in blogosphere.
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Azhagi - Works well, supports
multiple keyboard formats. Unfortunately only the paid version supports input into
Microsoft Office and other applications.
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Finally, this is what I am using nowadays - NHM
Writer. This software is from my another friend Badri Seshadri's publishing firm
New Horizon Media. Thanks to NHM you have a free Tamil Keyboard Software (less than
1MB download) that works in Windows XP, 2003, Vista & Vista x64. It works across
applications as it uses Windows Text Services Framework (TSF)
My earlier blog posts on related items:
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Nowadays, with the poor QoS of Telcos in India many users are forced to carry more
than one phone. Some are doing it so that they can separate their personal and official
calls. For me in all my years of having a mobile phone right from the first Motorola
brick phone when a single call costed Rs.16 to now, I never carried two mobiles
at the same time. The first time I did that was this Tuesday when I travelled down
to Delhi for a business meeting, and it turned to be a complete disaster. The idea
of two connections (Vodafone & BSNL) was to tackle a problem I have been having
in all Delhi trips in the last 12 months. Whenever I was in Delhi roaming from my
Vodafone (Hutch) connection I couldn't dial a BSNL Landline (044) number, everything
else works fine including CellOne numbers in Chennai.
After I landed in Delhi Airport I tried switching on one phone after other and both
failed.
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First was my regular phone (HTC
S710) which was continuously rebooting itself on the welcome screen with the only
time it booted was when I removed the SIM card (so what good is a phone without a
SIM card).
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Second was Dopod
720W (a.k.a HTC
S610) which showed up a dialog box saying something like "Repeated attempts to
unlock failed, to ensure this was intended, Press A1B2C3". And as soon as I press
the first key to do this, it popped up another dialog-box saying "Enter your device
PIN to unlock and press done key". Interesting user experience of having one modal
dialog-box over another on a device with no Stylus or ability to switch windows. Adding
to my woes here, the done key was disabled. So even after I entering the correct PIN
there was no way for me to press a disabled "Done" key. I wonder how this
version of Windows Mobile 5.x software ever passed its test cases?.
I was left with a fully useless phone and a 50% working phone - with the Dopod 720W
allowing me to receive calls only. No amount of reboots or anything worked with both
phones. That's when I realized how important Mobile phones have become for business
productivity. I managed to complete two of my planned meetings earlier so I had ample
time for a third but I couldn't schedule it or for that matter could not even call
my cab driver from lounge.
When I came back to Chennai Vishwak's mobile team gave me these options:
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For the HTCS710, do you have a micro SD, if yes, can you remove and then try.
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For both the phones to reset to manufacturer defaults, press 'power', 'left softkey',
'right softkey' simultaneously when the phone is powered down.
I tried both. For S710 the problem turned to be in the micro SD, once I removed it
the device booted fine. The same Micro SD is working on a PC, so I am wondering can't
a device on finding a problem with SD can't it just timeout and not load the module
and proceed?. For Dopod 720W after resetting to manufacturers default, everything
was working fine.
I am strongly tempted to throw my HTC devices out (I wonder why Microsoft is not investing
on designing a good phone themselves), go out and buy my all time favourite - the
rock solid, dependable Nokia
Communicator in its new avator (E90). I am giving S710 one more chance as I don't
want to waste my investment of Rs.16,500 in just 5 months.
In the end, the moral turns out that you should have a simple, low-end Nokia phone
always as a backup with you for those moments when the smartphones behave stupidly.
The phone should have minimum software, no GPRS, no Camera, just plain old Voice and
SMS. And for me an old Nokia 2310 in the office fitted the bill fine. Wish me good
luck with that.
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After nearly 4 years with an out-of-box theme from dasBlog, I managed to get one of
my designers to do a new design for my blog. Do you like this new design?. Please
post your comments.
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